miRNAomics and stress management in plants

Plants, being sessile, are negatively affected by the biotic and abiotic (environmental) stresses, reducing plant growth, productivity, and quality to a larger extent. Plant have evolved different physiological, biochemical, and molecular mechanisms to combat these stress conditions to maintain their growth, development, and productivity. Understanding the mechanisms involved in the plant response to stress conditions is the foremost step in the development of stress-tolerant plants. One of the important adaptations to stress conditions is the precise and fine regulation of gene expression in both time and space. Although gene regulation occurs at different levels through different mechanisms, the most crucial being at the level of transcription. One of the important post-transcriptional gene regulatory mechanisms used by the plants to restore and maintain cellular homeostasis during the stress conditions are microRNAs.

microRNAs, a group of approximately 22-nucleotide-